New Delhi, Jan. 12 -- One evening during a product launch, Mumbai-based PR professional Sneha Vyas, 38, found herself staying back late with a colleague she barely knew outside work. "We were both single, spending time together, talking about everything except work," she recalls. "It didn't begin as attraction. It grew through friendship, long conversations and a quiet consistency that eventually shifted into something more." There was no cinematic spark, no ding of a dating-app, no carefully chosen display photo or algorithmic compatibility score. Just proximity.

By the time the project ended, the two had fallen into a rhythm that felt unexpectedly intimate. What started as colleagues surviving deadlines together became what psychologis...